ILRF sponsored a Wal-Mart Food and Agricultural Workers speaking tour in April 2007 that featured Lorena Gomez, a former Smithfield worker from Lumberton, NC -- you can read a blog post from Lorena here.

It is very exciting to see victories like the Smithfield campaign and the Republic Windows and Doors workers in Chicago, but last week also showed labor rights advocates that there are still major battles to be won.  It was extremely disappointing to see that a few Republican senators and some people in the media were blaming auto workers for the situation facing the Big Three car companies seeking a bridge loan from the US government.  There have been a number of great articles and blog posts exposing some of the hypocrisy behind these attacks on workers, so I won't go further on that issue, but it's clear that some members of Congress are going to use any excuse in the coming months to attack organized labor.  In fact, a widely reported memo that was circulated among Republicans last week recommended that "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it." 

So, let's use the positive energy from these recent victories for workers and keep building the movement for labor rights -- we have a lot of work to do!